The Family

From a Strange Encounter With Iraqi Police to Fatal Capture

By LAURA MANSNERUS and JAMES DAO

Published: May 12, 2004

WEST WHITELAND TOWNSHIP, Pa., May 11 - Nicholas E. Berg wanted to help rebuild Iraq. Far from having opposed the war, he believed that the American presence there was a positive thing, his family and friends said. And he saw it as a business opportunity as well.

So defying State Department warnings, Mr. Berg, 26, traveled to Iraq late last year in search of work for his small company, which builds and maintains communication towers and is based in Pennsylvania.

He did not find a job but instead was taken captive by Islamic terrorists. His decapitated body was discovered by American soldiers on a roadside in Baghdad on Saturday.

As his family and friends in this Philadelphia suburb began mourning Mr. Berg's death, they also struggled to sort out the complicated and still murky circumstances of his beheading. It was unclear why he was singled out in what the Islamic terrorists contended was retribution for American soldiers' abuse of Iraqi prisoners, and his family wondered whether the fact that he was Jewish played a role in the killing.

"Can there be anything more tragic than this?" asked Richard Yoder, mayor of nearby West Chester. "We're all just in a state of shock. He was a well-known, popular kid."

Mr. Berg was detained in March by the Iraqi police in the northern city of Mosul, American officials and his parents said. While he was in police custody, he was questioned by F.B.I. agents who were trying to determine what he was doing in Iraq and whether he was a United States citizen.

At the same time, his parents, frustrated by their inability to find out about their son's whereabouts, filed a lawsuit in federal court in Philadelphia on April 5 asserting that he was being held by the American military in violation of his civil rights. A day later, he was released.

He disappeared soon after that.

On Tuesday, people involved in the case expressed frustration about whether the American government had acted quickly enough to secure Mr. Berg's release, and whether it had done all it could to help him return safely to the United States.

"His parents contacted our office, the F.B.I., the State Department," said Representative Jim Gerlach, a Republican from Upper Uwchlan Township. Mr. Gerlach met with the Berg family on Tuesday. "They got very insufficient information,'' he said. "They felt that they were not getting full answers."

American officials said that Mr. Berg was never detained by American forces in Iraq. They said he had been detained in part because the Iraqi police thought he was using stolen or fabricated identification.

"He was never being held by the U.S. military," an American military official said. "Some element of the U.S. government was instrumental in facilitating his release. He was turned over to U.S. authorities in Mosul, not detained, and then released."

Mr. Berg, the youngest of three children, grew up in a brick and vinyl split-level house in this comfortable bedroom community. His father, Michael, a retired schoolteacher who opposed the war, told reporters that he had not wanted his son to travel to Iraq.

"He looked at it as bringing democracy to a country that didn't have it," the father told The Associated Press.

At a candlelight vigil on Tuesday night for Mr. Berg down the block from his parents' home, more than 150 people gathered to sing "God Bless America" and recite the Lord's Prayer. People there remembered Mr. Berg as a former Boy Scout who loved the outdoors as much as he loved reading.

"He was at the library whenever he could get into it," said John Trama, a neighbor. "He loved books."

In high school, he played in the marching band, was a member of the honor society and competed on a Science Olympiad team that made it to national competitions three consecutive years, teachers who knew him said.

Charlotte Knighton, who taught Mr. Berg in her eighth-grade science class, called him a "giant" in talent, intellect and heart. She said he was great with young children, tutoring them in a summer science program for primary school students.

He was also a bit of an entertainer, once bringing in his father's beer-making kit to explain fermentation to his fellow eighth graders.

"He was a real dramatist," said Ms. Knighton, who now lives in Bozeman, Mont. "He just could put on a show and make you laugh."

Ms. Knighton said Mr. Berg traveled to Africa while in college and was deeply moved by the hunger and poverty he saw there.

"It was difficult for him to eat after he came home," she said. "Our country will be the poorer for having Nick Berg gone."

Bruce Hauser, a neighbor, said Mr. Berg was mechanically handy and displayed a fascination with communication towers from an early age. He even built one in his backyard, Mr. Hauser said.

"He was a great kid," Mr. Hauser said. "If anyone wanted a son, you'd want Nick for a son."

William Scott, a 27-year-old software engineer in Austin, Tex., was a close friend of Nick Berg's and a fellow science buff while they attended Henderson High School in West Chester. Mr. Scott described Mr. Berg as an inventive man committed to volunteer work who was willing to follow his idealistic instincts.

"He was extremely friendly, but also talented and driven," Mr. Scott recalled. "He was not afraid to do his own thing."

Mr. Scott said he had not known that Mr. Berg had traveled to Iraq but said it was just the kind of thing he would have expected him to do.

"He was an adventuresome type, and always wanted to help people, even when it was difficult," Mr. Scott said.

Mr. Scott, who graduated a year before Mr. Berg, recalled that his friend was a wildly popular counselor at a summer science program for young students. Mr. Berg created his own curriculum for the students, calling it Bergology, which had students build radios and sound systems out of cardboard boxes and wire.

"They built about 100 of them, then he got the lights to move in a pattern that would change," Mr. Scott said. "I guess I always expected to see his name in the paper some day, but for some great accomplishment."

"Everybody who met him came away with a very strong impression," he added. "He didn't try very hard to conform, but he didn't need to because he was so likable in every way."

After graduating from high school in 1996, Mr. Berg studied engineering at Cornell University. But he dropped out before graduating, his father told CBS News, and went to work with a Texas company that built radio towers.

Around 2002, he helped start a company, Prometheus Methods Tower Service, with members of his family. The company listed his parents' home as its business address.

According to his parents' lawsuit in April, Mr. Berg traveled to Iraq hoping "to develop business opportunities."

Mr. Berg's body will be flown to Germany on Wednesday and from there returned to the United States, American officials said.

Mr. Berg's father said that the terrorists who beheaded his son may have known that he was Jewish.

"There's a better chance than not that they knew he was Jewish," Mr. Berg told The A.P. "If there was any doubt that they were going to kill him, that probably clinched it, I'm guessing."

Laura Mansnerus reportedfrom West Whiteland Township for this article and James Dao from Washington.Contributing reporting wereJessica Bruder from West Whiteland Township andThomas J. Lueck and Sabrina Tavernise fromNew York.